The Quran and Bible's misconceptions

Dr. Maurice Bucaille is an eminent French surgeon, scientist, scholar and author of "The Bible, The Quran and Science" which contains the result of his research into the Judeo-Christian Revelation and the Quran. It is a unique contribution in the field of religion and science.
Being an outstanding Scientist, he was selected to treat the mummy of Merneptah (Pharaoh) which he did. During his visit to Saudi Arabia he was shown the verses of the Holy Quran in which Allah says that the dead body of the Pharaoh will be preserved as a "Sign" for posterity.
An impartial scientist like Dr. Bucaille, who (being also a Christian) was conversant with the Biblical version of Pharaoh's story as being drowned in pursuit of Prophet Moses. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that unknown to the world till only of late, the Holy Quran made definite prediction about the preservation of the body of that same Pharaoh of Moses' time.



This led Dr. Bucaille to study the Holy Quran thoroughly after learning the Arabic language. The final conclusion of his comparative study of Quran and the Bible is that the statements about scientific phenomena in the Holy Quran are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences whereas the Biblical narration's on the same subjects are scientifically entirely unacceptable.
As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Quran; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.
Misconceptions
As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Quran; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Quran simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.

This description of the origins of the Quranic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Quran!



This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Quranic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.
In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Quranic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.
Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Quran of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations.



This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilisations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Quran to the communication of the Quran to man.
Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Quran.


When this aspect of the Quran is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Quran which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.
This is a very judicious remark. Muslim and indeed non-Muslim translators who have produced a French version of the Quran are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading.


A further point is that translators especially those mentioned above may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge nor indeed had anybody else at that time.
They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Quran dealing with the same subject a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Quran that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.
Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Quranic text in the original language. 



Bible's scientific errors
On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Quran. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Quran since the time they first became apparent:
Well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Quran, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Quran (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes.
Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.
In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.


As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Quran in quite a different fashion.


When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras (chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book, The Quran.
The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Quran, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day. 



Uncorrupted nature of the Quran

In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Quran stems from the following factors:
First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Quran itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.)


In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Quran is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Quran to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura.


This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.)
The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions.

 
 

Text of the Quran uncorrupted
After Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Quran did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire.


Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.
Today's editions of the Quran are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Quran, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.


If the origin of the Quran had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certain opinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarised above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Quran.


But having said this, we should note that the Quran is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasise that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Quran has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Quran.

 

Unexpected discoveries

It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Quran in the original that I realised the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding.


With my basic ideas on the Quran - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.
Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Quran and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Quran any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.


In 'La Bible le Coran et la Science' (The Bible, the Quran and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academia de Medecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Quran; the title of the lecture was 'Donnees physiologiques et embryologiques de Coran'(Physiological and Embryological Data in the Quran). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarise below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Quran: 



A concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe; statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies; a prediction of the conquest of space; notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.
All of these data are bound to amaze anyone who approaches them in an objective spirit. They add a much wider dimension to the problem studied in the present work. The basic point remains the same, however:
We must surely be in the presence of facts which place a heavy strain on our natural propensity for explaining everything in materialistic terms, for the existence in the Quran of these scientific statements appears as a challenge to human explanations.
That does not mean to say, however, that the statements in the Quran - especially those concerning man - may all of them be examined in the light of the findings of modern science. The creation of man as described in both the Bible and the Quran totally eludes scientific investigation of the event per se.

Similarly, when the New Testament or the Quran informs us that Jesus was not born of a father, in the biological sense of the term, we cannot counter this Scriptural statement by saying that there is no example in the human species of an individual having been formed without receiving the paternal chromosomes that make up one half of its genetic inheritance.


Science does not explain miracles, for by definition miracles are inexplicable, thus, when we read in both the Quran and the Bible that man was moulded from the ground, we are in fact learning a fundamental religious principle:
Man returns from where he came, for from the place he is buried, he will rise again on the judgment.
Side by side with the main religious aspect of such reflections on man, we find in the Quran statements on man that refer to strictly material facts. They are quite amazing when one approaches them for the first time.
For example, the Quran describes the origins of life in general and devotes a great deal of space to the morphological transformation undergone by man, repeatedly emphasizing the fact that God fashioned him as He willed.
We likewise discover statements on human reproduction that are expressed in precise terms that lend themselves to comparison with the secular knowledge we today possess on the subject.

 


Interest to men of science

The many statements in the Quran that may thus be compared with modern knowledge are by no means easy to find. In preparing the study published in 1976, I was unable to draw on any previous works known in the West, for there were none.
All I could refer to were a few works in Arabic dealing with themes treated in the Quran that were of interest to men of science - there was, however, no overall study. Over and above this, research of this kind requires scientific knowledge covering many different disciplines. It is not easy, however, for Islamologists to acquire such knowledge, for they possess a mainly literary background.


Indeed, such questions hardly seem to occupy a place in their field of classic Islamology, at least as far as the West is concerned. Only a scientist, thoroughly acquainted with Arabic literature, can draw comparisons between the Quranic text - for which he must be able to read Arabic - and the data supplied by modern knowledge.
There is another reason why such statements are not immediately apparent: Verses bearing on a single theme are scattered throughout the Quran. The book is indeed a juxtaposition of reflections on a wide variety of subjects referred to one after the other and taken up again later on, often several times over.
The data on a precise theme must therefore be collected from all over the Book and brought together under a single heading. This requires many hours' work tracking down verses, in spite of the existence of thematic indexes provided by various translators, for such lists may perhaps be incomplete and indeed, in many cases, they often are.